cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32291701
The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.
Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.
. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.
This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.
This is the ultimate Texan dog-that-caught-the-car moment. I remember talking about this in school in Texas 25 years ago when Republicans were complaining about immigration. Several students brought up that the farms are all tended by “seasonal workers,” which meant immigrant labor, so what was the Republican answer to that? They didn’t have one, of course, not a realistic one. It was the same talking points then as now of “American workers” filling the gap, and even then those jobs didn’t pay a living wage, so no American would take them. I bet they pay worse now.
They had 25 years to figure this out, but of course they had no intention of figuring it out.
They’re gonna arrest the immigrant farm workers and then lease them right back to the same farms as slaves.
The Texas farmers…“How can Biden do this to us?”
Have the day you voted for, Texas.
Very predictable result of criminalizing the people who do the work.
a corporation that cannot pay labor what it requires (ie the market) should choose: shut down or shut down. profit is stolen wage, too. So… yeah.
Remember kids: corporations are not people. Unlike babies, corporations can be thrown out with the bath water.
Pay labor a living wage or get fucked.
Farmers will never learn, those people are the only ones willing to do the work. White kids have been raised that that work is beneath them
It isn’t beneath me. I just don’t think I could physically do it as a job. Also, the pay is bad. So, it’s pretty low on my job list. I’d rather work a fast food job. And I never want to work one again.
Not good lay plus that job sucks, it’s beneath you.
I feel like the not being able to physically do it matters a bit more, but maybe you’re right. I don’t look down on people that do those jobs, because it’s something that needs to get done, just like teachers, but they aren’t jobs I’d recommend for anyone.
I feel like the not being able to physically do it matters a bit more,
This is what slavers said, too.
Sorry, my mouth is already full from what I actually said.
Isn’t it kind of ableist to assume that when somebody says they are “not able to physically do” a job, that they’re lazy or classist? For all we know, they could have mobility issues or be unable to do sustained manual labor.
Disagree. There are plenty of people who would do the work, they’re just not willing to do it for the amount farmers are willing to pay.
Also, you’d have to be insane to do outside work in both Florida and Texas, now that both states have got rid of mandated water breaks for outdoor workers.
That yes, but also more.
One positive aspect of social media is showing the young how the world really works, to an extent I think.
Poor immigrants are generally in a more uninformed and desperate survival situation. Many probably aren’t of the mindset “fuck slaving away 14hrs a day for shit pay to make a billionaire richer”. They just generally don’t think that way yet.
I personally would rather die than be forced to work in those conditions. I sympathize with them and wish they didn’t have to either. But they’re still currently the ones more desperate and willing to suffer.
I would be willing to help with farm work however, if the pay was significantly better, 4-6hrs per day, 2-3 days per week. But normalizing this would necessitate eradicating billionaires and even hundred millionaires. Obviously not gonna happen.
I’m just sayin’ it’s more than just white kids are lazy. At least I hope so.
Nice try, racist. Stop splitting the working class up like that. Labor should be paid a living wage and any corp what cannot do that should fail. Race of the worker is irrelevant.
Capitalists have you convinced it is different between races but only because that distraction keeps capitalists exploiting the working class folk.
Ain’t no war but class war.
Funny how no part of the article mentioned hundreds of eager American workers rushing into those farm jobs. Nor the farmers/ranchers deciding they’d have to raise their prices and their pay rates.
That’s probably because markets aren’t going to pay more for the crops, and nobody wants to work that hard except people with no other options.
But where did the workers go?
This is not a problem for big ag. That’s why no regional or national ag-orgs are complaining. This is not a face eating leopard moment, sadly.
Campaneros still need to work. The pattern at the moment is they stay away for a few days after a raid, but then return. This benefits their bosses. Previously there were work stoppages to pressure bosses to raise the $/piece rate. Not now.
Plus the regime has promised to replace the workers lost to their ethnic cleansing campaign with an expanded H2a visa program - after having stripped away many of the already meager protections against wage theft.
The plantation lords know they’re getting cheaper, more exploitable labor.
The funny thing is that with Trump sabotaging the US dollar migrant labor may just stop being a thing on it’s own.
